The invention relates to a system for the tilting or inclining of an object suspended from suspension lines using a movable tensioning roller. It can be applied notably to sub-munitions of the "spiral scanning" type, fitted out with target sensors that activate the charge of the sub-munition, each sub-munition having a rotational motion and being suspended from a parachute at a given angle that is substantially constant to the vertical so as to enable the sensor to carry out a spiral scan of the ground while the sub-munition is falling. More generally, the invention can be applied to objects suspended from any suspension point which have to be provided with a variation of their tilt or inclination with respect to the vertical.
Initially, the axis of symmetry of the sub-munition is generally parallel to the vertical. To provide it with a given angle to the vertical, one commonly used approach consists in lengthening a portion of the suspension lines of the sub-munition, the other suspension lines keeping their length constant, so as to incline the sub-munition in using the energy developed by the tensile force or aerodynamic drag of the parachute. In order to improve the performance characteristics of anti-tank shells, it is desirable to increase the number of sub-munitions that they contain. This increase is difficult to achieve so long as the system for the tilting of each sub-munition remains bulky.
In order to obtain a precise tilting motion that is slow enough to avoid the triggering of troublesome swinging motions, the current approaches frequently use an intermediate movable mechanical system between the suspension lines and the sub-munition. This mechanical system provides for precise guiding and a limit-stop locking system. An approach such as this is described, for example, in the French patent application No. 2,642,159.
However, this type of approach may prove to be too cumbersome for certain embodiments.